*
Well... so much for that. Okay, complete darkness. Same old, same old. Now, what's it going to be? The Beast? Rigel? That time I cried in front of my dad after Yumiere's funeral? Wow, now that was scary. Okay, the darkness is fading. The void is filling in slowly as the sphere's approach. The dreamscape is all around me and my greenish-blue sphere is coming closer. I can feel it's pull... it's inescapable gravity. It's a part of me, I know that now. I feel… peace. For the first time in my life, there is no conflict, no pain. The sphere is here, ready to swallow me whole... ready to send me into a dream...
SLUMBER.
The glade. Always the glade. It stretches out into infinity, the logic found only in dreams giving it impossible proportions. A thought flies through my mind. A single image of a starry sky, filled with strange, multi-coloured spheres. As quickly as it came, the image is gone, leaving only emptiness. Strange. In this place... in this glade of dreams... I normally feel fear, or apprehension, but all I feel now is a sense of peace. Has it really been so long since I've been truly happy?
Have I even forgotten how it feels to relax and let the troubles of the world pass me by? The peaceful glade baffles my mind, but I find it hard to care. Why should I worry about it? Perhaps this is a godsend? A normal, everyday dream, filled with nothing but stray thoughts and fragmented memories?
“Barsch?” The voice that calls my name reminds me of birdsong and roses. The voice is light, warm, and above all, near. I turn, and the glade turns with me.
There. Standing at the edge of the glade. The moonlight hits her perfectly, framing her slender figure in ivory ribbons. Her hair is darker, and her eyes have become a deep shade of amber, almost gold, but she is Alza.
A small smile dances on her lightly tanned face, and I know that it is for me. Alza, smiling? The thought flashes across my mind for an instant, but I squash it down immediately. Why shouldn't she smile? After that long journey, through all of those hardships... we faced the madman, and we won.
And when everything was over, Alza remembered who she was, and who she had been. A normal girl. A normal, kind girl who loved to smile. A normal, sweet girl who felt the same way about me as I did about her. The day that she first smiled at me. The day that she first smiled for me. Is the happiest day of my life.
And Kingston, when he apologized for all his rudeness and mistrust. This happiness is real. This place, this glade where we come to be alone. All of it is real. She steps forward, her shyness only accenting her beauty. She is wearing a dress of purest white. It completes her, just as she completes me. I could stay here forever, in this quiet, happy glade. I could stay here forever, just her and I, until the world ends. I could stay here forever, in this peaceful, perfect place...
Awakening Page 194